The present invention relates to a roof vent and more particularly to a roof vent with provision to provide an early warning of a roof leak.
Roof system failures can and do occur anytime during their predicted watertight life expectancy as a result of vandalism, damage by maintenance personnel, acts of nature such as wind, hail, etc., poor workmanship, and premature material failures.
Unfortunately, a failure in the watertight integrity of a roof is usually not discovered until it has done considerable damage to surrounding roof area, if not the entire roof system. This extensive damage, consisting of saturation of roof substrates, i.e., insulation board, roof membrane, and structural deck materials, happens most often in reroofing projects where an existing (old) roof prevents water intrusion from entering and being detected in the interior of the building. Watertight roof decks consisting of poured concrete, gypsum, for example, also waterproof vapor barriers will also cause leaks to go undetected or give false locations of leak source in reroofing and new roof installations.
There have been previous efforts to provide for the early detection of roof leaks. Some of these are disclosed in the following United States Patents.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,984,947 shows a conventional roof vent.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,052,667 discloses a moisture meter for use in a flower pot using measurement of conductivity of the soil to indicate the moisture content.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,110,945 describes a roof installation for locating water leakage points. In this arrangement, a plurality of water detectors are positioned under the water-impermeable membrane of a roof to determine the general area of a leak.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,598,273 illustrates a leak detection system for roofs in which a plurality of sensors are placed beneath the water impermeable portion of a roof structure and a remote signalling system is provided.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,723,109 discloses the use of a water leak detector incorporated into a roof hold down device.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,924,174 describes also the use of a water leak detector incorporated into a roof hold down device.
The present invention is not taught in any of the aforementioned patents.